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Starting a consulting business
Legionnaired
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I'm a fairly seasoned programmer (spent all 4 years of college teaching me the right ways to do things, spent 3 years in college and this last 6 months working in perl/ruby/Rails) and though I have a nice job as a senior programmer with a .com (after only 6 months being out of school - now have 3 people reporting to me), I'm rapidly realizing that being at the whim of greedy managers sucks a lot. I'd like to get a job with one of the big banks/insurance companies in the area, but that'll probably be a little while down the line and where I'm at in my life, I'd like the flexibility of per-project work.
I'd really like to be able to work on a per-project basis developing web services - I'm not a designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I give me an idea you'd like to monetize, and I'll bang out rock-solid code to make it work very, very quickly. It seems like most of the consulting biz now is just making websites, though.
Does this seem like the kind of thing I could make work? I've got a couple ideas for different SAAS websites that I could do on the side, and then maybe if those get going I could use the income from that as the basis for my new company...
Or should I just learn me some corporate politics?
I'd really like to be able to work on a per-project basis developing web services - I'm not a designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I give me an idea you'd like to monetize, and I'll bang out rock-solid code to make it work very, very quickly. It seems like most of the consulting biz now is just making websites, though.
Does this seem like the kind of thing I could make work? I've got a couple ideas for different SAAS websites that I could do on the side, and then maybe if those get going I could use the income from that as the basis for my new company...
Or should I just learn me some corporate politics?
Legionnaired on
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Depends on how evil his employment contract is...
Yeah, he could have do not compete or no moonlighting/get permission for all secondary jobs or business clauses
Kind of not really what you asked, but a useful piece of info for any contractor.
And admanb is right, a lot of it is about effective networking to ensure you have a steady stream of work.
Frankly, you're green and still practically right out of college when compared to programmers with double-digit years of experience, dozens of major projects, and a trail of programming languages a mile long. Spend this time working on your business acumen, expanding your skillset, and getting your network broadened. You also mentioned that you are a 'solutions' guy, not an 'idea' guy; well, time to start looking for a partner who can compliment your skillset.
Oh, and you think your manager is a greedy fuck, just wait til someone is paying you by the hour for a project. There are plenty of jerkoffs out there in management who are assholes to anyone keeping them from making their next bonus or promotion. The main advantage to a steady job is that you have the same asshole to deal with all time and may make working them easier in the long run.
And you're pretty junior. Everyone I know who's gone on in the consulting side of things has at least 10 years experience under their belt and a long list of contacts. The hard part is really not the programming work, it's getting the next job while you're finishing up the current one.
Before you start up consulting, do you know 20-30 people who would recommend you to at least 10 different people as a consultant? If not, you're not ready to strike it out on your own.
I don't think that's an exception. I expect being a people person made it really easy for him to make contacts.
If you have only 6 months of actual work experience you aren't all that "seasoned" in my opinion. You may be God's gift to code, but you will have a bitch of a time convincing any project manager worth his salary to throw in with someone so green.
Try some freelance work on guru.com, but ultimately it's in your best interest to play the corp politics game and pay your dues for quite some time.
Was about to post that.
The tricks that have worked for me (and this is by no means universal) are mostly dumb luck. In my "area" I got a lot of impressive resume value by jumping into my field in management, and then landing a pretty awesome 9-5 a year later at a well-respected, local agency.
A few things really helped me along the way. Specifically, I'm now doing grantwriting and project-management for my old agency. I transitioned from being a "staff member" to being an outside consultant with the same agency. This means that I have the same bosses who know and trust me handing me consulting work on a silver platter.
I also, before making the move, ensured that I had about 10 months worth of basic expenses in the bank. That's about 2+ years worth of savings. I mention this because, starting out, you're never going to make as much (in most fields) for the first 6+ months or so as you would at a 9-5. At the moment my consulting work covers maybe 1/2 my monthly expenses, so I've got a safety-net of savings and an income stream that is just shy of covering me. My partner works, as well, and provides a further net as her paycheck continues to come in regularly.
It'll take me awhile to build up my resume and to get something other than the agency I'm working for now.
I'd echo that with only 6 months in the field, you're probably best off doing some freelance stuff on the cheap to build up contacts and resume. It takes a lot of lucky breaks, and doing a bit on the side here and there will facilitate a move to self-employment down the line. In many cases, it's simply a matter of waiting until something breaks and the opportunity comes along.
I'm pretty good at my job, but definitely have a lot to learn about managing people, expectations, and business relationships - I have good salary and some good room to pad my resume over the next couple of years, so I'll stick it out and maybe do some contracting on the side for some extra cash and experience.
Thanks for the comments about the work on OSS stuff, I'm working towards that right now! Just forked Rails' Geokit and added MySQL spacial indexing support, and I'm working on a javascript library (All the good parts of Sproutcore, but with progressive enhancement) in my spare time, so I should have some good traction there in the future.
Anything to learn in the first 2-3 years in the business of which I should be aware?
I think you've had some great feedback, and I think you should concentrate on getting as many experiences as possible. Then you'll be good to go!
Sure $20 may seem like a nice get your feet wet type of projects but you will absolutely be underbid by guys willing to go as low as $1 and bang it out in an half hour.